Trae Young is the Quintessential Washington Wizard
The Washington Wizards have not advanced past the second round of the playoffs since 1979, and they have qualified for the playoffs once since 2018, so it is not surprising that the player they have anointed as their franchise cornerstone has posted a 2-3 playoff series record in his eight year career. The Wizards sent Corey Kispert and C.J. McCollum to the Atlanta Hawks for four-time All-Star Trae Young, who last won a playoff series in 2021 and is thus the perfect player to lead the way for the Wizards to continue to avoid playoff success.
Travis Schlenk, who was Atlanta's general manager when the Hawks acquired Young in a draft day deal in 2018, is now the Wizards' senior vice president for player personnel. After the Hawks traded for Young in 2018, Schlenk declared, "We love his ability to pass the ball, to make other players better with his court vision. Obviously he gets a lot of notoriety for his long-range shooting, but I think his ability to pass the ball is what we really liked about him.'' Young made it clear in recent days that he wanted to be traded to Washington, and apparently Young's minimal postseason success did not diminish Schlenk's enthusiasm about Young's skills.
In Magic Rout Hawks and Warriors Edge Grizzlies to Clinch Playoff Berths, I summarized Young's career:
I have never understood or agreed with the "Ice Trae" hype; yes, he has hit some exciting shots and he posts gaudy statistics for points and assists, but he is an undersized, inefficient offensive player who puts up empty calorie numbers while not playing a lick of defense for a mediocre team. Young has a 2-3 career playoff series record in seven seasons, and his Hawks have not won a playoff series since 2021. The notion that he is a great clutch player is refuted by his woeful playoff career shooting (.402 from the field, including .297 from three point range). He has never shot better than .441 from the field in a playoff series, and he shot worse than .400 from the field in two of his five playoff series.
Young's NBA regular season career averages of 25.2 ppg and 9.8 apg may look impressive, but he has shot better than .438 from the field for a season just once, and he has shot worse than .420 from the field in three seasons, including a career-low .411 in 76 games in 2024-25 and .415 in 10 games so far this season. Young ranks 12th in ABA/NBA regular season career scoring average but--much like the scoring numbers posted by Damian Lillard (13th) and James Harden (29th)--Young's individual production is disconnected from sustained team success. Young and Lillard have higher career scoring averages than five-time NBA champion Kobe Bryant and four-time NBA champion Stephen Curry, and Harden has a higher career scoring average than one-time NBA champion Giannis Antetokounmpo (who Harden foolishly mocked for supposedly lacking basketball skills), four-time NBA champion Shaquille O'Neal, one-time NBA champion Jayson Tatum, and one-time NBA champion Nikola Jokic.
Young ranks third in ABA/NBA regular season assists average behind Magic Johnson and John Stockton, but no competent talent evaluator would take Young over--to name just a few championship-winning point guards--Oscar Robertson, Isiah Thomas, and Jason Kidd.
Statistics are meaningless without context. At one time, Stephon Marbury had logged more 20 ppg/8 apg seasons than any player other than Oscar Robertson, but no one other than the deluded, so-called "Starbury" ranks Marbury among the all-time great point guards. Young is the modern Marbury, with the main differences being that Marbury was stronger while Young is more apt to shoot long three pointers. Much of what I wrote about Marbury 18 years ago also applies to Young:
Stephon Marbury is no Mozart of the hardwood. Marbury possesses certain obvious physical talents--speed, ballhandling skills, shooting ability, good strength for his size--but he neither instinctively makes the right play nor has he--paraphrasing Mozart from the above story--sufficiently familiarized himself with the work of the great composers (playmaking guards) of the past. Mozart never had to think in conventional terms about becoming a composer because he understood how to apply his talent in a way that synthesized and then expanded upon the work of previous great composers. Marbury has tried to take the same "shortcut" but without the benefit of being a basketball visionary genius. Magic Johnson passed the ball the way that Mozart composed music; like Mozart, Magic did not have to think about all of the intermediary steps in his development. A great chess player once said that his philosophy was to do things as they must be done and then see what happens--but this presupposes having the vision/talent/training necessary to see what must be done; it used to be said of Fischer that he could throw a piece in the air and it would land on the best square. For Magic, that meant seeing that his teammate would become open before even that teammate realized it and then delivering the ball through the hapless defense in such a manner that the teammate could not only catch the pass but also attempt a shot that he had a good chance of making based on his skill set.
The construction of Marbury's game is the very opposite of such genius; Magic passed the ball to make plays and to win games, while Marbury passes the ball to get assists and thus to use statistics to "prove" his value and obtain a bigger contract. One might object that ultimately there is no difference between Magic accumulating assists and Marbury accumulating assists but to think such a thing--let alone say it--betrays a complete lack of understanding of the sport (and of genius). Magic passed the ball not with the goal of getting an assist for himself but because the pass was the right play in that given situation. Marbury passes the ball if and only if, in his estimation, the recipient is likely to immediately shoot and score, thus padding Marbury's assist total. One problem with this is all of the passes Marbury does not throw because he does not think that they will boost his statistics. Another problem with this is all of the bad shots Marbury then takes in lieu of making good passes. A third problem with this is that Marbury in general is not interested in doing anything on the court that does not make him look good on the stat sheet--matters such as defense or any action when he does not have the ball other than figuring out how to get the ball back in his hands so that he can resume padding his stats.
During his NBA career, Marbury has played for Minnesota, New Jersey, Phoenix and New York. Almost without fail, when he leaves a team that team performs better and when he joins a team that team performs worse. In layman's terms, he's a loser. He may be a wonderful human being--I don't know, I've never met the man--but as a point guard, as a basketball floor general, he is a loser: his teams lose and, what's worse, rather than accept responsibility for those losses he consistently offers excuses while at the same time providing ridiculous self-evaluations of his play. When Terrell Owens proclaims, "Who can make a play? I can!" you may be amused by his bravado or merely annoyed by it but you cannot deny the obvious fact that a player who ranks second in receiving touchdowns in NFL history can--and does--make plays. However, when Stephon Marbury earnestly proclaims that he is the best point guard in the NBA all you can do is wonder if he is delusional and/or high.
The Hawks won more games than they lost twice in Young's eight seasons, peaking with a 41-31 record in the COVID-19-shortened 2020-21 season, and they have not posted a record better than .500 since 2021-22. During Young's eight seasons, the Hawks went 221-272 (.448 winning percentage) with Young and 46-48 (.489 winning percentage) without him--and the trend of playing better without Young has become more pronounced in the past three seasons, when the Hawks went 60-80 (.429 winning percentage) with Young and 33-29 (.532 winning percentage) without him.
The Hawks did well to unload Young's huge contract, poor shot selection, and non-existent defense, while the Wizards did nothing to change their reputation as one of the most ineptly run NBA franchises of the past 40 years.
Labels: Atlanta Hawks, C.J. McCollum, Corey Kispert, Stephon Marbury, Trae Young, Washington Wizards
posted by David Friedman @ 12:13 PM
